carla bruni: it's all connected

I've half-written and then discarded at least a couple of blog entries this week. Apparently my attention span is not what it could be. But now, now I am trying again, because I realize I can cover all the things I want to if only I use the first lady of France as the nexus. (Shut up.)

In between my posting of her coiffure on here and my hearing her CD for the first time, I took the opportunity to wikipedia Ms Bruni. I was delighted--delighted, I tell you--to read that she has said in published interviews that she is easily bored by monogamy and that while she practices it "from time to time", she prefers an alternate arrangement. So in my discussions of Carla, her haircut, and her music with my friends, I've made a point of bringing that up. And when I brought it up to Mr Indemnity, I said, paraphrased, "Can you imagine what would have happened if, say, Michelle Obama had made a public statement in which she mentioned that she likes screwing around? You'd have Sarah Palin as your VP right now, that's what!" And we kinda agreed that those Europeans are so much cooler and less uptight about that kind of thing than we repressed Americans, as a culture.

Okay, now just keep that conversational tidbit in the back of your mind as we move on here, 'k?

So then, like the next day after I had that conversation, I came across a couple of articles linking back to a Maureen Dowd op-ed in the NYT and a Politico article, both of which take the Obamas to task for ::gasp:: eating french fries and burgers and other "bad" foods at times, along with their organic garden veggies and other "good" foods, because OMG THE OBESITY CRISIS and they have to be role models and "it's confusing the public! how can someone look like Barack and Michelle do and still eat fries sometimes?!?" (Because obviously one order of fries=400 pounds and an early death which requires a special coffin custom made from a piano case, eye roll.) If you've been reading along, campers, you'll already know how I personally feel about the concept of "good" foods and "bad" foods and assigning moral weight to eating. Tying down and force-feeding chocolate ganache to one of those joyless nutritionists who are always going on in the media about half a baked potato being a serving and such is still one of my most cherished sick fantasies. But really, what I mean to say is this: American society is so fucking uptight and prudish and Puritan that not only do we expect our political leaders (and their spouses, apparently) to hew to a certain strict sexual morality, and act shocked! shocked, I tell you! when they all end up *not* doing so, now we're expecting them to hew to a certain strict eating morality. To which I say, are you fucking kidding me? Also, I don't care who my president sexes up, whether he goes to church or not, or what he has for dinner. I just want him to not screw up the country. Be good at his job. That's all I care about, personally.

Next. I also found myself really amused, bemused, and pleased by Ms Bruni's matter-of-fact comment about non-monogamy. Not because I care whether anyone else in the world is monogamous or non-monogamous themselves, mind you. I am so a "do whatever makes you happy" kinda girl. It's just that I know--not to tell tales out of school or anything--but I know, from personal experience, that the idea that you can be in a relationship with someone and not care that they are having sex with other people just makes most people's heads explode. People who are cool and blase about heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, every sexual act, fetish, and kink you can think of and a few you (and by which I mean, me) probably can't without help, will still, at a deep gut level, flip the fuck out at the idea of non-monogamy. (And I have very little idea why at *my* gut level, so whatev.) Anyway, in my eyes, Carla Bruni is not badass primarily because she likes to sleep with lots of guys or whatever; she's badass because she'll say it in public probably knowing it's gonna freak people out and she does not care.

Or maybe she really isn't badass. Maybe she's just Italian/French. I dunno. In any case, Team Carla. And I'm still getting her haircut.

The end. For now.

xoxo